This piece explores the relationship between cultural identity, traditional visual languages, and Western modernist abstraction. The work draws from the history of folklore and inherited artistic traditions to reflect on the ways cultural symbols carry social and collective memory.
Through the transformation of figurative forms into geometric structures, the painting examines the dialogue between ancient artistic references and contemporary visual culture. The shift from recognizable representation toward abstraction creates a space to consider how traditions evolve, are reinterpreted, and sometimes disrupted through cultural exchange.

Maria del Pilar Arrieta

Attached II

This painting emphasizes glimpses of life, sociocultural experiences, and diaspora within the communities that I am part of in contemporary culture. In this work, a female portrait appears to float above the ocean while becoming submerged within a setting of patterns and geometric forms. I draw from references in modern geometric abstraction, as well as the visual languages, forms, and symbols found in pre-Columbian art. The painting functions as a form of storytelling, narrating experiences that highlight survival and resistance through cultural traditions. It reflects the feeling of being immersed within American culture while maintaining connections to inherited histories and memories. This ambiguity challenges certain ideas of Western cultural narratives, creating an awareness of the tension and uncertainty surrounding identity, belonging, and displacement.

Forces of Nature

In my painting I overlap the figurative with geometric shapes to create landscapes that narrate stories from the present in contemporary culture. I am indexing the geometric shapes that appears in pre-Columbian art but also mirror the geometric abstraction from modern art. I am using the representation form of the female portrait to emphasize cultural identity through gender, race, and survivance; to open a conversation in the contemporary diaspora.

Girl in the Rose Pants

I like to portray the interaction between the figures and nature from life and this painting is a representation of a young male portrait capturing the moment and expression to pause and observe what is happening on life. In this painting, I am using the thematic of the young male figure to reflect on how they live in the modern world. The figure is immersed in a background of patterns and shapes to suggest the culture in which he live, and I use the language from folkloric tradition with modern to think about how we are inherited to the traditional way and living the contemporary culture.

Marcelo and the Soccer Ball

I am using the language of the modern art with cultural identity to merge narratives where the figurative and the geometric shapes are intersecting. My painting is a representation of the female figure within the gender role and its position in the Latino portrayal. The painting of a female talks about the youngest and the celebration of the liveliness. I am using the allegories from the Western renaissance of the goodness and the beauty to attempt to connect with the allures through the expressions of the self.

Young Lady Holding Leaves

I am using the metaphors to represent the how we feel with the interactions of human conditions and the unconscious. In this painting, I want to connect on human experiences, and the feelings of resilience, and vulnerability in a time of social change. The red chair denotes some aspect from live like being strong, bold or being supportive. I am emerging with the portrayal of the female figure to talk on the role of the women in the present. I am using the language from modern art using geometric bold shapes thinking on the space and time, but also in what we know as we have grown with our own culture and values

The Red Chair

Young Lady with Flowers

This painting is a figurative abstraction that represents two female figures intertwined and layered within a composition of patterns and geometric forms. My work explores narratives of personal experiences and fragments of lived stories, creating a space that reflects the possibility of a utopian world.
Through this painting, I examine the agency of female representation in contemporary culture, considering themes of identity, race, migration, and displacement. The overlapping figures suggest connection, memory, and shared experiences, while the geometric elements create a visual language that bridges abstraction and the human figure. The work reflects the complexities of belonging and the ways individuals construct their identities across different cultural and social landscapes.

Maria del Pilar Arrieta

collection: Modern

Material

Medium

Type

Sizes

Orientations

Dimensions

Colors